Curtis Zhang
6/3/20
Rules of the Game
The short story “Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan is a story that tells about a Chinese girl(Waverly) growing up in Chinatown and becoming a chess prodigy and trying to get away from her mom who she thinks doesn’t care about her, but actually does. Some things that I have noticed about this story is how her mom is trying to use her to bring their family honor, Waverly not noticing that her mom is actually caring about her, and the daughter trying to escape from living to please her mom.
Waverly shows how her mom is controlling her life as well when in the chess tournament her mom accidentally annoys her without knowing, but she cannot say anything “I was annoyed, but I couldn’t say anything.” The Narrator then shows why her mom wants to use her daughter when her mom went around the street telling everyone that her daughter was Waverly to try and get people to think highly of her. This shows that the mom is controlling her for honor and praise and Waverly dislikes that. Waverly even runs off when her mom shows her off and hides in the dark alleyways for a few hours.
Waverly either does not like the way her mom is presenting her care for her or does not realize that her mom actually cares for her, as her mom makes her brothers do all her chores and makes her study chess right after school. She shows that she dislikes her mom’s care when her mom is standing over her and making “a soft “Hmmmmph” would escape from her nose,” and she tells her mom that she can’t concentrate when she does that and her mom does not appreciate that and makes loud noises in the kitchen, presumably because of her being annoyed at her daughter.
It also shows that the daughter wants to escape from the way that her mom is trying to control her, as shown when the daughter tries to escape by running away from her mom but ultimately failing. This is also made more apparent in the fact that at the end of the story Waverly declares her mom as her enemy and decides her next move against her mom.
The story “Rules of the Game” is very interesting because it shows the struggles of a strained relationship between a mom and a daughter.